One of the greatest films about children ever made and a haunting celebration of anarchic rebellion. The first fictional work from writer/director/scenarist/editor Jean Vigo, ZERO FOR CONDUCT was closely based on his own miserable experiences as a boarding-school pupil and influenced other
screen classics of disaffected youth including Truffaut's THE 400 BLOWS and Lindsay Anderson's IF....
The plot follows the misadventures of a group of young students as they endure the absurdities and deprivations forced upon them by their petty, authoritarian teachers. After a confrontation in which one of the students repeats before the entire faculty the phrase with which he has rebuffed the
sexual advances of a teacher (literally, "shit on you"), matters escalate into a full-scale dormitory rebellion. Beds are overturned and pillows ripped open, resulting in a rain of feathers which falls over everything--one of the most beautiful images in this, or any, film. Finally, locked in an
attic for the duration of the school fete, the young rebels escape onto the roof and rain down a barrage of books, stones, and shoes onto a group of visiting dignitaries, inspiring the rest of the boys to revolt and take over the school.
Vigo, whose promising career was cut short by his death from septicemia at the age of 29, demonstrates a complete mastery of his art in ZERO, only the third film he had made. Despite occasionally poor acting (the cast was largely nonprofessional), several sequences stand out as near-perfect
fusions of shot composition, editing, lighting, and dialogue. The "rain of feathers" sequence is justly celebrated; so is the scene in which three of the boys, after being ordered to stand still for two hours at the bedside of a supervisor, plead with him to allow one of them, who has developed a
stomach ache, to visit the bathroom. Their repeated pleas become a kind of incantation which takes on a haunting, other-worldly quality.
ZERO was made for a mere 200,000 francs and shot by Vigo's friend Boris Kaufman, younger brother of Soviet "Kino-Eye" pioneer Dziga Vertov. It received a mixed reception on its initial 1933 release and was soon banned for fear it would instigate civil unrest. Rereleased in 1945, it has since been
accepted as a landmark of world cinema. leave a comment
